Global spending on video media services on the rise

Global spending on consumer video media services is set to increase 4.2% to touch $314 billion in 2017, compared with 2016, according to Gartner.

Pay-TV services is the largest spending segment and is on pace to represent 90% of the total market, totaling $282 million in 2017.

Emerging Asia/Pacific (20.8%) and the Middle East and North Africa (17.4%) are forecast to record the highest growth in end-user spending on consumer video media services in 2017.
Earlier this year, China Mobile began offering its pay-TV service free of charge to its premium subscribers for the first two years of a new contract.

“This will lead to an influx of new subscribers in the pay-TV marketplace. However, it will also bolster price competitiveness and put negative pressures on the average revenue per user (ARPU) of the overall pay-TV market,” said Fernando Elizalde, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Moreover, Internet-delivered linear TV services have already launched in India and the Middle East, and Gartner expects these services will commence across all emerging regions by 2018.
“We estimate that, incentivised by lower prices, one million households in emerging regions will enter the pay-TV market through an Internet TV service by 2020,” said Elizalde.